Chapter 231: Heart of Benevolence and Righteousness

After Su Ruo finished cleaning all the barbs out of Song Jing's wound, it took a full half hour.

An inexplicable emotion spread between Song Jingyu and Su Ruo; after this contact, the distance between them seemed to have drawn a step closer.

When Song Jingyu left, Su Ruo stood under the sky full of stars and waved goodbye to him; everything was as beautiful as a painting scroll.

After the incident where Haomu came to find fault, Song Jingyu returned and strictly ordered his troops, not wanting them to make any mistake that could be seized upon, causing the hard-earned commendation to be lost.

But strangely, after that Haomu never came to cause trouble again, as if the matter had already passed.

Yet Song Jingyu still held onto that breath in his heart, never letting go, and continued to demand strictness from his troops.

As the rescue work gradually drew to a close, but Su Ruo and her team dared not relax in the slightest.

Because after a great disaster comes a great epidemic, with so many dead in this disaster, what they fear most now is the outbreak of disease.

But even though Su Ruo and her team had exerted all efforts to prevent and treat, many people still showed symptoms of fever.

Therefore, the Old Dean promptly convened a meeting; now, aside from treating the sick and saving lives, the most important thing is to pacify people's hearts.

After experiencing such a great disaster, it is easy for people's hearts to become unstable; once someone's thoughts turn extreme, the resulting consequences will be immeasurable.

Therefore, while treating the sick and saving lives, they must also pay attention to soothing the emotions of the patients and their families.

Su Ruo looked at this Old Dean who was already over seventy; at this moment he seemed to have grown even older by a few degrees.

Su Ruo could feel his pressure and fatigue, but his steps remained spry, and the words he spoke remained resonant and forceful.

Su Ruo couldn't help but feel a sense of admiration for him; given his age and status, being able to come here is absolutely due to his love for the motherland and the passionate blood burning in his body.

Speaking frankly, Su Ruo feels that when she reaches the Old Dean's age, she certainly could not do what he does—coming to the disaster zone to save people without regard for his own safety.

But at this moment, Su Ruo could never have imagined that seeing him today would be the last time she would see the Old Dean.

At the end of the meeting, the Old Dean instructed the students to take good care of the patients while not forgetting to take care of themselves.

It was he who brought them here, and he also hopes to bring them back safely.

But in the end, all of his students returned safely, while only the Old Dean remained here forever, unable to fulfill his promise to bring them home.

After the meeting dispersed, the students again threw themselves into the tense rescue work; because some roads were still unrepaired, medical supplies were somewhat scarce, making the rescue work arduous and the road ahead long.

The previous rain made the disaster victims' lives even worse; already living in poor conditions, the vast majority of them were still living in tents.

One rain caused the number of people catching cold and fever to increase rapidly, with coughing sounds rising and falling.

That day, a middle-aged man came into the medical tent holding a little girl; as soon as he entered, he went straight to kneel before the Old Dean, tearfully begging him to save his daughter.

The middle-aged man's wife, parents, and son all died in this disaster; he now has only this daughter, and if anything happens to her, he simply cannot go on living.

The Old Dean hurriedly took the girl from the man's hands, but the little girl had already lost her pulse and breathing, her limbs had stiffened; he had brought her too late.

Seeing the Old Dean delay, the middle-aged man immediately became emotionally agitated and questioned: "Are you really a doctor? Hurry and save my daughter! Why aren't you saving her?"

These days, the Old Dean has experienced too many such situations; although he wishes to help, he is destined unable to save everyone, so he can only speak with a sorrowful voice to advise the middle-aged man: the little girl has passed; let him mourn.

But the middle-aged man could not accept this fact at all; his emotions collapsed instantly: "You're talking nonsense! My daughter wasn't dead; she was fine before—how could she suddenly die?"

After shouting, the middle-aged man shoved hard at the Old Dean, wanting to push him aside, take the girl elsewhere for treatment, and he would surely cure her.

The Old Dean, already old, could not withstand the full-force push of a middle-aged man who does farm work year-round; his body immediately lost control and fell backward, his head and cervical spine striking the edge of the table behind him.

With a cracking sound, the Old Dean collapsed straight to the ground.

The two young nurses beside him panicked at the sight, rushing forward to ask the Old Dean what had happened, wanting to help him up.

But the Old Dean immediately stopped them; having practiced medicine for many years, he almost instantly diagnosed his own condition.

Skull injury, intracranial bleeding, spinal misalignment.

The Old Dean knew that this fall meant he would never stand again, but even at this moment he felt no regret whatsoever.

He only sighed that people still cannot defy aging; if he were forty years younger, his bones would absolutely not be this fragile, nor would he be felled by a light push.

At this moment, the middle-aged man tightly held the little girl in his arms, repeatedly murmuring: "Niuniu, don't be scared, Daddy is here, Daddy will take you to see a doctor, Daddy will surely cure you."

When the earthquake first struck, they were all asleep; he woke up, shouted loudly to wake the whole family, then grabbed the sleeping daughter beside him and began to run outward.

But just as he ran out of the house, the house collapsed; he watched helplessly as it fell before him, burying his parents, wife, and son inside.

That was the most desperate moment of his life; he desperately dug with his hands, but in the end all he recovered were the corpses of his parents, wife, and son.

Because he could not bear this blow, he went about each day in a daze, failing even to notice his daughter's illness; now that the daughter has left him, his emotions collapsed instantly.

The middle-aged man walked out holding his daughter's corpse, as if completely immersed in his own world, utterly unaware of what was happening around him.

Until the nurses and the patients in the tent together stopped him, facing the crowd's righteous indignation.

When the middle-aged man saw the Old Dean lying on the ground, he seemed to finally realize what had happened, and he desperately shook his head, saying: "I didn't do it, it wasn't me, I didn't—"

But everyone had just seen what happened; how could they believe his words?

Thus, the middle-aged man faced the crowd, who leveled even harsher accusations at him.

Until the Old Dean said: "This matter is not his fault; let him go!"